Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Radio’s Most-Played Songs in History

Radio’s Most-Played Songs in History
First posted 12/6/2011. Revised 12/30/2014.

These are, according to various sources (see bottom of page), the all-time most-played songs on the radio. These figures generally treat all versions of a song as one entity so in this list the title is listed first and then the artist most associated with the song. For ties, songs are listed in order of how high they rank according to the DMDB. The numbers, in millions, refer to how many plays the song has had at radio regardless of format, genre, demographic, or time slot.

Note: in creating this list, multiple sources were used to try to assure as much accuracy as possible. However, because there are different companies who measure radio airplay and some report that information readily, there are inherent flaws. For example, some assert that Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” is the most-played song in history, but it doesn’t make the list because no reference was found for an officially reported number. In addition, the focus here is on radio airplay so songs like “Happy Birthday” which is sung ad infinitum or “It’s a Small World after All” which Time magazine estimates to have been played 50 million times at Disney World (see article here) are not included. Also, this list cuts off at the 5 million mark.

“Membership association of more than 370,000 U.S. composers, songwriters, lyricists, and music publishers.” Established in 1914. Their primary function is the licensing and distribution of royalties for public performances of copyrighted works. Represent more than four million copyrighted works.

Performance rights and royalty tracking and distribution organization for recording artists. Represents more than a quarter million songwriters, composers, and publishers. Has a repertoire of 3 million + songs. The company monitors nearly a half million hours of radio airplay.

While the Digital Dream Door site below is more current, this list does offer a more complete list of all songs to have aired more than a million times. Site appears to be the personal website of Oleg Grishntkin. He does not indicate the list’s origin.

This appears to be a listing of those songs reaching the BMI “Million Airs” Club, but a list more current than 2002 would be nice. According to this list, “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” is the most played song, with 8 million airs. Only includes songs with 3 million + airs. This same list appears at ClassicBands.com.

Their function is to track the number of plays for songs on radio and other mediums. They are the basis of Billboard magazine’s airplay data. The site is geared toward businesses and does not appear to have any links to to an archive of songs and the airplay they’ve garnered. However, they do publish a list of BDS Certified Spin Awards each month in Billboard magazine of songs which have received 50,000+ spins. Generally, there are one or two songs each month which reach heights beyond a ½ million spins.

Performance rights and royalty tracking and distribution organization for recording artists. Lesser known than ASCAP or BMI. Name originally stood for Society of European Stage Authors & Composers, organized to better represent European artists in the U.S. Today they are just known as SESAC.